Urban ecosystems are largely defined by the built infrastructure created to support large concentrations of human populations. Historically, this infrastructure has not been constructed with climate change impacts in mind. The recent trend, however, towards “green” infrastructure recognizes that cities can not only be constructed in a way that is sensitive to climate change, but that individual actions can be taken to improve ecological conditions in this regard. One difficulty with this approach is that the highly distributed nature of green infrastructure activity makes the effects difficult to quantify. Additionally, getting the public to care about infrastructure improvements, particularly "hidden" systems, is a challenge.
Results/Conclusions
We have established an initiative that attempts to solve both of these constraints in Indianapolis through an initiative called "IndianApps". IndianApps uses the technology found on citizen’s mobile devices as a way to collect information about green infrastructure practices being installed around the city. Mobile device applications have been developed for key types of green infrastructure that would be difficult for the city to otherwise collect. The data is then used to model effects of green infrastructure such as water availability and urban canopy cover, both of which have implications related to future of cities and climate change. Additionally, the design of the “apps” is meant to be fun and engaging for the user, thus helping to popularize the green infrastructure of the city and lead to greater acceptance and stewardship of urban ecosystems. We conclude that the use of the public for data collection and technology for citizen engagement hold great potential for ecological learning and climate mitigation in cities.
